Shared Drives
A Shared Drive is a private space that a group of people works in together. Files in a Shared Drive belong to the drive rather than to any single member. When someone leaves, the files stay.
Shared Drives appear in the sidebar under Shared Drives, separate from your Home.
Creating a Shared Drive
- In the sidebar, click the + next to Shared Drives.
- Give the drive a name.
- Click Create.
You become the drive's first owner. Every drive is created with two root folders: a Home for its files and its own Archive.
Each drive also gets a handle, a randomly generated id used in its link (poly.app/shared/<handle>). The handle is not derived from the name and cannot be changed later.
poly mkdrive creates a drive and can add members in one step with --member email=role.Roles
Shared Drives use four roles. Unlike per-file sharing, a drive can have multiple owners.
| Capability | Viewer | Editor | Admin | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| View, download, comment, copy | ||||
| Upload, edit, move, rename | ||||
| Archive files | ||||
| Permanently delete files | ||||
| Add and remove members | ||||
| Make the drive public | ||||
| Add and remove owners | ||||
| Delete the drive |
Admins can manage members up to and including other admins. Only an owner can add or remove owners.
Membership
Open the sharing dropdown on the drive to manage members.
- Invite: enter the person's email and choose a role. The default role is Viewer. The person must already have a Poly account.
- Change a role: use the dropdown next to a member's name. You can't change your own role.
- Remove a member: set their role to none from the same dropdown. They lose access immediately.
- Leave a drive: right-click the drive in the sidebar and choose Leave this shared drive. Anyone can leave at any time, with one exception. The only owner of a drive can't leave it. Add another owner first, or delete the drive.
Public access
An admin or owner can make a drive public, which enables its /shared/<handle> link. Anyone with the link can browse the drive, open files, and download them, even without a Poly account. Public visitors get viewer access at most. Making the drive private again immediately revokes their access.
Storage
A Shared Drive doesn't have a separate quota. Its storage counts against the personal quota of each owner. Poly checks every owner when files are added, so uploads and copies into the drive are rejected if any owner is out of space. For the same reason, someone can only be made an owner if their quota can absorb the drive's current usage.
You can see storage usage in Settings.
Moving files in and out
Files can't be moved between drives. That includes moves between your Home and a Shared Drive, and between two Shared Drives. Copy the file instead, then archive the original if you no longer need it. Within a drive, moving files works normally, including moves to and from its archive.
Archives
Each drive has its own archive, separate from your personal one. Right-click the drive in the sidebar and choose Go to archive to browse it. Editors and above can archive files, and admins and owners can permanently delete them. See Recovering Files for how versions and restores work.
Deleting a drive
Only an owner can delete a Shared Drive. Deletion is permanent and removes the drive's Home and Archive for every member. To delete from the terminal, use poly rmdrive.